The present invention relates in general to vessels with improved supporting surfaces for supporting articles and pertains, more particularly, to a vessel for supporting food products such as pre-baked food during the baking process. The support surface is an improvement over the conventional flat, bumpy or rippled surface found, for example, on conventional baking sheets, cookie sheets and pizza pans.
With the conventional vessel for supporting a food product or other article to be processed the vessel includes a supporting surface that supports the article over substantially all of a supported surface of the article. For example, it is common to bake cookie dough an a flat cookie sheet or bake an un-cooked pizza on a flat pizza pan.
These conventional baking pans are typically constructed using a flat, bumpy or rippled surface that provide for direct contact between the cookie dough or pizza. The direct contact between the food product being baked and the pan result in a food product that is trapped or sealed or in complete contact with the baking surface of the pan.
The result of this "trapped" effect is well-known. The food product that is trapped on the cooking surface has a tendency to burn due, at least in part, to the direct heat transfer between the cooking surface that becomes essentially the same temperature as the baking appliance, for example, an oven and the food product since they are in substantially direct contact.
Also, another drawback of trapping the food product on the baking or cooking sheet or pan is the inability to effectively brown the food product without burning the portion of the food product in contact with the baking or cooking sheet or pan. This same trapping effect can sometimes be observed in other processes related to food products, including the uneven thawing of a frozen food item or the uneven cooling of a food product or the uneven freezing of a food product when the food product is placed on a conventional flat cooking sheet.
It was previously mentioned that other surface treatments for cookie sheets, pizza pans and the like are known, and they include what has been referred to as a bumpy surface or a rippled surface. It is believed that vessels constructed so as to have these or equivalent types of surfaces will suffer all of the drawbacks previously mentioned as well as additional drawbacks related to cleaning the vessel after use, particularly after a use that results in a burned portion of the food product remaining on the cookie sheet or pizza pan or other vessel used as herein described.
Over the years embossed sheet metal has generally been used for architectural or cosmetic practical applications. There are a number of different existing patterns, such as stucco, cedar, diamond, ribbed and pebble-grain used, for example, for aluminum siding and aluminum or bright stainless steel wall panels or refrigeration panels.
These patterns, as well as the pebble-grain pattern discussed herein, are produced commercially by embossing. Generally, this is done in a rolling mill or by an outside specialty metal finisher.
Once the aluminum material has been rolled to the desired thickness, it is fed, usually in coil form, through a set of embossing rolls. These large steel rolls have the exact same pattern which is then transferred to the aluminum sheet.
By nature of the process, the pattern will repeat at intervals based on the roll diameter chosen by the embosser. The pattern may be embossed onto one or both sides.
However, the only use of an embossed sheet product using the pebble-grain pattern or any other pattern for that matter in the food service industry is a use as a serving tray. In that use a special aluminum alloy (5657) is used because it can be chemically brightened to give the food service tray a silver-plated appearance and it is not known to be used for cooking or baking.